Remains
by Laikokae
Summary: Two of the survivors of the war find their way back to Hogwarts


TITLE: Remains  
  
AUTHOR: Laikokae  
  
CATEGORY: Snape/Harry; Post-Voldemort; Angst;  
  
RATING: PG-13  
  
SPOILERS: All four books.  
  
SUMMARY:  
  
Years after the end of the war, two survivors find their way back to Hogwarts.  
  
DISCLAIMER: Not mine.  
  
NOTES: There's really not much to it. Just a little piece I couldn't keep down.  
  
  
  
*  
  
  
  
Anything worth having, some wise Muggle had once said, comes with a price.  
  
This, thought Harry, staring at the ruins, was the price.  
  
The high walls were little more than piles of broken stone and the tall towers that had once spiraled far into the sky had been reduced to singed rubble. The long staircases lay in broken chunks among the debris.  
  
This is what they had paid. This is what they had sacrificed.  
  
Huge portions of the ruined castle were inexplicably missing. The entire west tower, once home to Professor Trelawney's predictions of death and doom, had vanished completely, leaving a gaping hole as if someone had taken a huge bite out of the castle.  
  
Fate, devastating as it was, was not, it seemed, without a sense of irony.  
  
Hagrid's hut had been completely and utterly flattened to the point where it would be difficult to remember exactly where it had stood. The entire east wall of the Entrance Hall had been demolished and what remained was is terrible disrepair. Only the dungeons, below level as they were, had escaped relatively in tact.  
  
Again, the irony did not escape Harry.  
  
His footsteps echoed loudly against the cracked stone as he made his way through what was left of the castle. There was a burning heat exploding in his chest and it was longing to crawl up his throat. His eyes prickled. He stubbornly swallowed it back down, taking a deep breath and letting his eyes fall shut.  
  
In the dark, blinded from the harsh truth of the ruins, Harry could almost pretend that Hogwarts still stood. Even after everything that had happened, there was a scent, a fizzle in the air that stank of Hogwarts. The scent of stone, old books, warmth and that indescribable tingle of magic. Not a thousand wars or a thousand Voldemorts would ever, could ever, erase it.  
  
Yes. Yes, with his eyes squeezed shut, his breath deep and his denial firm, Harry could almost believe he was home.  
  
But he could not stay that way forever. Eventually he would have to open his eyes.  
  
And Hogwarts would never be the same.  
  
Hogwarts was gone and with it, so was the only home he'd ever known.  
  
What was the point, Harry wondered bitterly, of returning triumphantly from battle, if there was no home to return to? No safe, familiar halls and small comforts calling him back.  
  
Had it been worth it, after all?  
  
Sometimes Harry thought in the quietest part of his mind, that the price for freedom, the price of Voldemort's defeat, had been much too high.  
  
"Potter," a cold voice came from behind him. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, as if Harry was still his student and Snape had caught him lurking around the corridors after curfew.  
  
A bittersweet smile twisted around Harry's lips. He almost expected to hear "Fifty points from Gryffindor" on Snape's next breath.  
  
But there was no Gryffindor anymore; there was no Hogwarts and to Harry, it felt as if there was no breath left in the world.  
  
Strangely, Harry was not surprised at all to find Snape here of all places. As much as he would've hated to admit it in his early years at Hogwarts, their minds did tend to run along the same lines. He supposed Snape too, needed some closure.  
  
"I had to see," Harry answered finally, not turning to face his old Potions Master. "I didn't really believe…" he trailed off helplessly.  
  
There was a long moment of silence; then, hesitatingly, Harry felt a slim hand rest on his shoulder. It was the first gesture of comfort and affection Harry had ever received from Snape. In fact, he would be willing to bet every Galleon he had that it was damn near the first anyone had ever had from Snape.  
  
Harry knew very well what it must have cost Snape to give it to him. Snape had always gone out of his way to be as icy and remote as possible. In the midst of the war, it had been necessary. But even afterwards, even after he and Harry had fought side by side in the thick of it, old habits had been hard to break.  
  
Sometimes, Harry mused, it hardly mattered that the war was over. So many wizards and witches had lived their whole lives amongst it all. Now that they had a chance to let it go, to live, they could not.  
  
Harry reached up, slowly, and rested his own hand on top of Snape's.  
  
Snape cleared his throat weakly. "The Ministry is planning to rebuild it. Here," he said flatly, his voice devoid of any emotion. His voice did not betray him, but regardless Harry guessed correctly that Snape did not approve. "Weasley is insisting."  
  
Weasley was the current Minister for Magic: Not Arthur Weasley, not even Percy Weasley, but Ron. If anyone had told Ron or Harry or anyone who had known the Weasleys well, that in a decade Ron would be Minister for Magic, they would have been packed off to St. Mungo's quicker than Disapparating.  
  
But the war had changed them all. In the end, there had been little humor left anywhere, and the younger Weasleys' good-natured pranks and their long- held, fine tradition of skiving off was some of the first to go.  
  
These days they scavenged for the little hope, the little optimism they could find in whatever sources were available. Rebuilding Hogwarts, Harry supposed, was an attempt to recapture the last remains of a great era.  
  
Privately, however, Harry agreed with Snape. It seemed obscene, sacrilegious even, to build a replacement Hogwarts; even worse that it should be on the site of the old. Hogwarts hadn't just been destroyed by Voldemort, it had…it had died. And while it should be grieved, it should also be left in peace, put to rest.  
  
What was it that Dumbledore used to say about death?  
  
It really is like going to bed after a very, very long day.  
  
Harry stared at the ground, trying to quell the swelling of grief that flooded him at the reminder of what else the war had cost them. Dumbledore had died with Hogwarts in the end, or perhaps Hogwarts had died with him. The two were impossible to separate in his mind, really. Harry had never known a Hogwarts without Dumbledore, and even though he knew that once, long ago, Hogwarts had existed without him, Harry couldn't help but feel that even then, there had been a Dumbledore in one form or another.  
  
Now though, now there was neither, and the world was sorely worse for it.  
  
At his feet, Harry noticed a small green plant poking its way up through the cracks in the stone. With a sudden surge of anger and indignation, Harry kicked at it, grinding it with his shoe, determined to end its progress.  
  
Snape's hand on his shoulder went from comforting to restraining. He pulled Harry back so that his back was leaning lightly against Snape's chest and Snape's arms were wrapped around Harry's chest.  
  
Harry gulped and began to sob. He did not cry - there were no tears - but his whole frame was convulsing with the force of the sobs crawling up his throat and wracking his body. His legs wavered and then failed him completely and he collapsed onto them, bringing Snape with him. His hands plucked restlessly at the weed until it was completely decimated and continued to pluck at the empty dirt until finally Snape gently covered his hands with his own.  
  
"I thought they would wait longer," Harry whispered harshly, not sure if he was speaking of the Ministry or the weeds or of both.  
  
"Life goes on, Potter," Snape replied, his voice stiff. "There is little point in dwelling on death or what has been."  
  
"Harry," the young man said softly, after a long moment.  
  
"Harry," Snape conceded gently. "Harry, let it go," he added in the kindest voice Harry had ever heard him use.  
  
Slowly, almost painfully, Harry nodded and turned in Snape's arms until his head rest against the other man's chest. Snape gently brushed a lock of unruly hair of his forehead, stroking Harry's bare forehead with the pads of his fingers. The lightening scar that had made him famous, made him the Boy Who Lived, instead of just Harry Potter, was gone. It had vanished when Voldemort had been defeated.  
  
"It is done," Snape told him. "You've been given a clean slate." After a moment he added, "We both have."  
  
Harry curled himself tighter into Snape's chest. "I miss…" he could not finish.  
  
Snape nodded wordlessly and held him closer. "So do I," he whispered finally.  
  
Out of the depths of his memories, Snape remembered an old Muggle verse. "'To everything there is a season,'" he quoted softly. "'And a time for every purpose under the sun.'"  
  
"And now?" Harry demanded brokenly, his voice tinged with bitterness. "What season is this? What purpose?"  
  
"I cannot tell you," Snape answered blandly. He stared at the ruins that surrounded them as he spoke. "I've spent my whole life living under the shadow of Voldemort, now that it's gone…" he trailed off. "I do know this, though," he added, meeting Harry's gaze. "For the first time, I think perhaps, I have the rest of my life to figure it out."  
  
"Rest of my life," Harry echoed with wonder as if the thought had only just occurred to him. Harry had never expected to survive and now…  
  
Snape gave him a small, sardonic smile. "It is an alarming prospect, is it not?"  
  
Harry let Snape pull him to his feet, and with one arm supporting him, lead him out of the ruins, away from Hogwarts, back into the world.  
  
As they reached the stretch of field just beyond the lake, Harry couldn't resist a last glance at the castle. It looked like any other ruined castle in England. Dozens of its kind could be find all over the country.  
  
Harry vaguely recalled that one of the Muggle-protection charms cast on the castle, one that made the castle appear an old set of ruins. He wondered what the Muggles saw of it now. He wondered if they sensed the desperation and the sadness and the memory of better times etched in every stone. He wondered if they ever suspected the sacrifices that had been made to keep them safe. He wondered if they cared at all for the remains of a battle that had once been all that stood between the world and darkness.  
  
He doubted they did.  
  
Most of them had probably lived their whole long, silly, ordinary lives out, completely oblivious to the war that raged in the world beside their own or the devastation it had caused and the lives that now lay, like the castle, in ruins.  
  
He envied them.  
  
But finally, now he too, had a life to live. 


End file.
